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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24103576">Forever Awake</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/klatukatt/pseuds/klatukatt'>klatukatt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>American - Freeform, Autopsies, Body Horror, Decay, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Terror, Wild animals</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:09:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24103576</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/klatukatt/pseuds/klatukatt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Statement of Kay White regarding their reoccurring nightmares of being a corpse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Forever Awake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I just now realized I used The Magnus Institute when it would be more plausible that Kay went to a sister institute in America.</p>
<p>Here I have both the audio file and the script. Run time is 8:22</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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<p>“Do I just… talk here? Okay. Hello, uh, my name is Kay White. Today is  May 9th and I have come to the Magnus Institute to make a statement about my nightmares.<br/>
I know it doesn’t sound very paranormal, to have nightmares. A lot of people would put it down to stress. I work a full time job as well as raising my daughter. I have a husband but he works too, and sometimes I say it’s like having two children at home. So I don’t believe it’s the stress or lack of sleep that brought on these, I would call them visions. I don’t want to call them night terrors because everything I’ve read say those intrude on the waking world and I know I am very much asleep, that is one of the stranger parts of these dreams.</p>
<p> I’ve always had very detailed and intense dreams. I always wanted to keep a dream journal but in the retelling the dream logic falls apart and I could never describe the details enough to make me satisfied. The dreams I want to talk to you about are simpler, but I know they are all connected. They are all different except for the theme where I wake up dead. I mean, I come to consciousness as a corpse. I’ve died in  dreams before. I don’t believe the stories where if you die in your dream you die in real life, that’s rubbish. This is different. When I wake up a corpse I can feel my body, cold and still, sometimes in twisted and uncomfortable positions. I can see and hear my surroundings but can only look at a fixed point as the muscles and impulses that control my eyes are long gone.</p>
<p>That is where the dreams begins to differ. Some times I am outdoors, sometimes I am already in a mortuary, sometimes I’m still on the floor with congealed blood sticky on my skin. Any place you can imagine finding a corpse, I’ve been there. One last week I woke alone in a forest, my head was twisted up so I could see part of the sky. It’s always nicer when I die face up so I can see some of my surroundings. I supposed I, the body, slipped while hiking and broke its neck on the rocks below. I’m never sure if the body is supposed to be me or just a random corpse. I was looking at the sky and what trees were in my narrow eyeline. Birds made their song but it was otherwise quiet. My skin felt dry and stretched and the fluid dripping out of me ran down in to the cracks between the rocks. Beetles and ants had started crawling on my skin. It's not the worst sensation, the worst is when they force themselves down my nose. Then the bigger predators come next, this time starting with a fox, surprisingly. It gnawed cautiously at my fingers, pulling off the smallest ones first. That's when I heard the crows spot me. They have a distinctive caw for carrion. They touched down, their claws scrabbling at the rocks that I lay on, and started to work on my face. They took my eyes first, because of course they did, and pecked at the soft flesh of my nose and ear. I could feel my ear tearing away, pulling on the taught flesh of my twisted neck, the bones pressing out eager to rip through. The experiences get a bit fuzzy once my eyes were gone. Getting eaten by bits sort of runs together as my nerves no longer know what part of my body they are attached to.</p>
<p>I like being able to see. It gives my dreams context but sometimes I am face down or have my eyes closed. It was like that in this one instance and I thought I would just get to feel the pain of whatever was going to happen without context, but there was also a lot of movement and maybe rocking? Strange that my inner ear would still work. My body felt constrained, as if in a body bag like I had experienced before, but it was tighter. I felt hands move me and drag me into a sitting position and then they pulled a cover away from my face. There was a man there inches from me, staring into my eyes, his fingers prodding my sagging skin. His expression was not scared or worried and that terrified me. Who was this man who was so unconcerned with a dead body in front of him? Had he killed me? I can remember his face so clearly I could point out a picture instantly, or draw it if I had the skill. But quickly he pulled the cover back over my head and I was lifted… and dropped. I hit water and was dragged down by a weight attached to my feet. The pressure grew quickly. What little air was left in my lungs came out easily enough. I could feel the squeeze as water forced its way into my body by whatever openings were available but the gasses inside could not find a way out. My guts began to tear as gas tried to find a larger cavity and hundreds of bubbles formed in my muscles, tiny pinpricks that fought to get out though my skin.</p>
<p>It’s hard to tell how long it lasts once the pain gets overwhelming. The crematory went rather quickly, the embalming went much to slow. I’ve been autopsied more than once. They keep your eyes closed for autopsies so I couldn’t tell you who performed them, and contrary to what you see on TV they don’t constantly narrate their actions, but I can tell you they are more pleasant than you’d think. Their hands are gentle as they draw the scalpel from here to there and there to there. It's a delicate process, removing organs, and they have to keep them all neat so they can put them away later. They take samples and examine the organs. Then they move on to the head. I can sometimes see glimpses when they check my eyes, and even up my nose. They move around to my scalp and cut from one ear along my forehead to the other ear, sometimes I make note of which side they start on. The scalp is peeled away oh so slowly and laid over my face. The saw comes next, a small tool, but it feels like the largest blade possible when you cannot see or move and it traces its agonizingly slow line around my head and when I think this must be the worst pain possible there's a crack and a shift. They push their fingers into the seam between my skull and whatever is left holding me to my body and they pull and I detach from my eyes, detach from everything that I am and I feel every nerve and connection breaking--</p>
<p>Anyway. Autopsies are the nicer dreams.</p>
<p>That's all I have to tell you. It's not really something you can investigate. I hope it will come in useful, though, in case anyone else comes in with strange dreams.<br/>
On the bright side, nothing hurts as much anymore, pain-wise I mean. What are a few scrapes and bruises when compared to what happens after death?”</p>
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